"How come?"
She glanced at him and shrugged, keeping it light and offhand, because she didn't want him to think she considered herself unfortunate to have been raised by warm, loving grandparents. "My mother died when I was a baby, and… I never knew my father."
Tony's eyes were dark and intent. "No brothers and sisters?"
"No," Karen said, "just me." She smiled and added softly, "Now it's just Andrew and me."
"Hmm." Frowning, Tony popped the last of the cookie into his mouth and brushed crumbs from his fingers. "Speaking of the kid, where is he?"
"I sent him outside for some fresh air. He should be… " Karen leaned over the sink to look out the window. "Yes, there he is… Oh, look, there's Mr. Clausen. I wonder what they're doing?"
"Mr. Clausen?"
"My neighbor," Karen said, and caught her breath as Tony brushed against her, reaching past her to twitch the curtain out of the way. "He lives upstairs."
Tony's laugh gusted warmly past her ear and teased the wisps of hair on her temple. "Looks just like Santa Claus, doesn't he?"
Karen snorted. "That's what Andrew says." But when she turned to give Tony an exasperated look, she found that his face was closer to hers than she'd expected. And suddenly it was hard to be exasperated about anything… or even to think clearly. She frowned in concentration and whispered, "I'm… a little concerned about him."
"Why?" It was a soft, warm sound that barely altered the shape of his mouth.
"Because… " His mouth… so close to hers. "He still believes in Santa Claus."
A smile hovered, just a breath away. "Don't you?"
"Don't I… believe in Santa-" She blinked, straightened and turned blindly back to the window, her heart beating in a crazy, uneven rhythm. "He doesn't get outside enough, that's the problem. He reads too much. He needs to play with other children more. I wish-"
"Careful… " His hands turned her; his finger touched her lips, lightly, as it had the night before. "Don't forget, it's the season for wishes." The smile on his lips faltered, then tilted wryly. "Hey, don't wish for something unless you know what you're getting into. Believe me, having a bunch of kids around all the time isn't all it's cracked up to be."
Karen whispered, "You sound as if you know." His hands were on her shoulders; she could feel the energy in them, like a force field that shut out the rest of the world and pulled her into his orbit.
"I know," he said harshly. "I'm one of seven kids, remember? Four sisters, two brothers. Hey, if your son likes to read, maybe it's because he was born that way. Maybe he's glad he's got space to call his own, and peace and quiet when he wants it, and privacy. Some kids need those things, you know?"
His eyes were dark, intent… and filled with a certain wistfulness. Karen's heart filled up and turned right over; understanding and insight made a lovely star burst inside her. "Some kids," she said softly, touching his face with her fingertips. "Like… you?"
Of course… A shy, private child in a noisy, gregarious household-was that why he'd taken to Andrew? Did he see himself in her quiet, reserved, bookish little boy?
All through her, in every part of her, emotions were burgeoning. She held very still, feeling the smooth, hard edge of Tony's jaw in her hand, the moist warmth of his breath on her thumb… and smiled as she listened to the chaos inside herself, the tinkling, shimmering sound of a miracle-in-progress.
Tony's lips formed a kiss on the sensitive pad of her thumb; his hands moved inward to the base of her neck, his thumbs describing tender circles on her throat, stroking upward toward the soft underside of her chin. She held her breath and watched his eyes come closer…
"Mom!" The front door crashed back on its hinges. "Mom," Andrew shouted, "guess what-it's snowing!"
Chapter Five
Tony's hands shifted back to her shoulders, then lifted. She let her hand drop away from his face, touched the center of his chest briefly, then took a step away from him, and in a carefully neutral voice called, "In here, sweetheart." She felt shaky, as if she'd been too abruptly awakened from a deep sleep. She felt cold and isolated, as if she were a lost traveler and Tony's arms were a safe warm haven, just beyond reach.
Though he didn't say anything, the look Tony gave her as he widened the space between them must have mirrored her own-one brief glance, searing as a whiplash, full of irony and longing.
Andrew burst into the kitchen, as excited as Karen had ever seen him. "Mom! Hi, Tony! Hey, look out the window. It's starting to snow!"
"Sure is," Tony confirmed, and turned to Andrew with a grin of masculine communion. "Looks like it's coming in early. Well, kid, we'd better get that tree while we still can. You ready to go?"
"Andrew," Karen interjected, "what in the world have you got there?"
Andrew said, "Yeah… just a minute," to Tony and went on with what he was doing, which was taking small, fuzzy brown balls out of his pockets and placing them on the kitchen table. When he'd emptied every pocket, he unzipped his jacket and let an ava-lanche of the things tumble out onto the table, a chair and the floor. He was beaming, bright-eyed and rosy with pride and cold.
"Look-sycamore balls! Mr. Clausen said I could paint them, to make decorations for our tree. We have the paint, right, Tony? Isn't that cool, Mom? And there's hundreds of them out there-except some of them are already coming apart, and they're really itchy. Mr. Clausen says not to get 'em on your skin, or they'll give you a rash. What do you think, Mom? See, we don't have to buy any more decorations, we can just make a whole bunch of these!"
"Sycamore balls," Karen said faintly. "Where on earth do you suppose Mr. Clausen got such an idea?"
"Mr. Clausen-" Andrew began, then paused and, with a curiously wary and secretive look, shrugged and said neutrally, "Mr. Clausen knows a lot of things. Maybe because he's old."
"Huh, we used to do these when I was a kid." Tony picked up a ball by its stem, and dangled it between his thumb and forefinger. "Must have been just about every year from kindergarten to third grade. There was a great big old sycamore in the schoolyard, and every fall we'd gather these things and paint 'em for Christmas. We used to dip them in glitter, too."
"Cool! Can we get some glitter, Mom?"
"If we don't get a tree, there won't be anything to hang 'em on," Tony pointed out, dropping the sycamore ball and dusting his hands. "Come on, Andy, let's get this show on the road!"
Karen stifled a gulp of protest as he picked up a star-shaped cookie on the way out the door. Andrew looked at her, grinned, selected a Christmas tree for himself and followed.
"The old guy's right about the itching," she heard Tony confide to her son as they crossed the living room together. "I used to chase the girls with 'em and put 'em down their necks. Especially my sisters-boy, did they hate that."
"Cool," said Andrew, with his mouth full of cookie.
Tony couldn't remember when he'd had more fun in a snowstorm. To accommodate the tree, and because he'd been expecting snow, he'd brought his little four-wheel-drive pickup truck instead of his car, even though it didn't have a very good heater and was going to be a tight squeeze for three. They all piled into the front, Andrew in the middle, laughing, puffing out vapor with every breath and shaking snowflakes all over everything. Tony didn't think he'd ever seen anything prettier than Karen's blond hair with snow melting in it, like tiny glittering stars.
When "Jingle Bell Rock" came on the radio, Karen surprised the heck out of him by starting to sing along. Andrew pretended to be embarrassed at first, but after a while, when Tony started to sing "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer," he laughed so hard he almost fell off the seat. And by the time they got to the tree lot they were all singing along with Elvis's "Blue Christmas" at the top of their lungs.